Posted: 9/5/07
Henton's road to NB full of hard work and dedication
 North Branch superintendent Deb Henton said she would be a general contractor in another life. In her new role with the district, she is intent on building on the district's assets. |
By Patrick Tepoorten
The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team has often been referred to as a collection of "lunch-pail hard-hat" personalities because they rose to their station through hard work and dedication. The same might be said about the new North Branch School District Superintendent Deb Henton, and not just because she is a serious hockey fan.
Henton, like the overachievers that won the gold medal in Lake Placid, got where she is today through hard work and dedication.
After graduating a year early from Grace High School (now Totino-Grace), a college preparatory school, in 1972, Henton chose a "track" other than education. She went to work for Burlington Northern, and worked for the railroad until 1978 when she stopped working altogether to stay home with her first child.
It wasn't until her son, by then the oldest of two, started kindergarten that she decided to go to college.
After four years at UW River Falls, her first job was as a substitute teacher in White Bear Lake. In 1990 she was hired as a social studies teacher in Woodbury before ultimately landing in the South Washington County School District, where she would spend six years and earn her Masters Degree.
It was during that time that she first moved from the classroom to administration.
In 1997 she was hired as an assistant principal at Stillwater, a position she served in for three years while she began working on her Doctorate.
In 2000, at the request of friend and colleague John Bianchi, Henton went to Harding High School, where Bianchi told her she could very possibly become a principal in the near future. Henton jumped at the chance and sure enough, she became the principal in 2002.
In 2005 her career took a different turn, when her leadership skills were noticed and the district tapped her to become the Executive Director of the Alternative Learning Program. A year later in 2006, she was named the Chief of Staff of St. Paul Public Schools.
Were one to do the math, Henton went from stay-at-home without a college degree to Chief of Staff of one of the largest school districts in the state in around 20 years.
It was a desire to settle down somewhere that led her to apply for the superintendent's position at North Branch, and since the decision was made to hire her, the board has spoken very highly of her.
This marks the beginning of her first school year in North Branch, and she has set forth some goals for herself and the district. High on her list is to revisit the district's Strategic Plan and make sure the district is on course. "I want to make sure we are doing what we say, that we are measuring our progress in specific steps, and that we reporting to the public," she said.
Part and parcel to that is insuring the district is engaging the community and increasing parental involvement through the district's recently completed Community Engagement Plan.
As she indicated at a school board meeting last Thursday night, she also intends to take a personal interest in improving sites within the district's Adequate Yearly Progress results.
Her time in the Twin Cities, where the student population spoke 100 languages and almost half the students were "English as a second language," has prepared her well for North Branch, she said. "It had a profound impact. You learn the power of language trying to communicate with parents and students.
Communication is something Henton takes seriously and she is looking forward to establishing good relationships with administrators and staff in a district in which it is possible to do so. "In St Paul, I was dealing with 70 school and programs. Here it is five schools," she noted. Although the scale is certainly different, the challenges aren't so different," she said. "It's resources, student achievement, engaging the community and parental involvement." The advantage of North Branch, for Henton, will be the much more personalized atmosphere. For instance, she recently was able to hold an administrative team retreat at her home, something that would have been impossible with the massive administration of an urban school district.
Henton confesses to being a sports fan of some note, with hockey, especially Golden Gopher hockey, right at the top. But she also is a fan of the Twins, Vikings, and the Wild, among others. The married mother of two, who confessed she would like to be a general contractor in another life, also has a cabin in rural Minnesota and does Bikram yoga in her spare time.
She prefers the Bikram regimen of 90 minutes in 105 degree heat because it allows more muscle flexibility and releases more toxins.
Henton is still settling in, but has so far been highly impressed with North Branch staff and the community. "The community has been so welcoming and I feel so fortunate to have been selected." She expressed genuine gratitude for giving her the opportunity to lead.
As a superintendent of a public school, the flexibility and enjoyment of heat that draws her to Bikram yoga may be just the traits she needs to be enjoy more success in her field.
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